Barbara Stefanelli (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
THEhe time of crisis, ours, can overturn the elements that define it and deliver us to “a crisis of time”. But is there a road – a path that is both personal and collective – that can take us away from the short perspective, from the shortness of breath that holds us back in the dark seasons?
He has always tried to answer this question Richard Fisher, who made it a digital mission via newsletter and which now collects years of work in a book (entitled-manifesto The Long Viewwhich we could translate with the Italian formula “long-term”).
We are far from Being and Time by Heidegger; the idea here is to offer us a guide, a small compass to hold in hand.
The author shares with readers the most intimate and dramatic experiences that can affect a couple. A Monday morning that begins with the expectation of the birth of a child, therefore the maximum opening of credit that we can think and feel towards life, and ends with communication – through the windows and the rules of a hospital during the pandemic – that the child (Jonah was the name chosen) “didn’t make it”.
The main thing is not to get lost
That announced, new, potentially infinite life has turned back on itself. There wasn’t even time to start, to try. The father and mother reveal what helped them to survive, to overcome the sudden end of hope.
“The Long View” by Richard Fisher
“We were both scared – says Fisher – but instinctively we began to exchange memories, memories of our past together. Like the first trips to the United States, as a boyfriend, or trips to the mountains, in Europe, with our eldest daughter. And again: we imagined the months ahead of us, the friends we would see, family dinners, the places we would visit. It was all we could do at the time.”
Is it little? Or a lot? It’s a furrow, dug by the awareness that things – if you manage not to shut yourself down in the present – have been better and could be better. Tomorrow, early. This is why it makes sense to think and think about it “in the long term”. For this we need to change our way of interpreting time.
We can’t live “short-term”
We have been driven by what has been defined as “polycrisis”, or perhaps better “permacrisis”, towards a metric marked by “the blink of an eye”. Or imprisoned in a lifeless look behind blinders (timeblinkered is the English version proposed by Fisher).
But living “in the short term” takes us away from the responsibilities and consequences of our behaviors. It applies to us, in our very private lives. And that goes for politics, business, the media. A global amnesia that becomes an alibi. A shield for not acting or for acting without thinking. Without looking in the mirror, willing to recognize the signs of aging and ready to draw another map.
What helps you keep your eyes open to tomorrow? Write to us at [email protected]
All articles by Barbara Stefanelli
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